EAA/ANN AirVenture Innovation Preview

"Breakthrough Technology" Currently Fragmented

It has been called important
breakthrough technology that can significantly contribute to
meeting the European Security and Defense Policy (ESD) operations'
objectives. And it's being developed all over the globe through a
variety of projects and programs to meet different goals and
objectives.

Across the pond, the ESD, the European Commission, and the
Aerospace and Defense Industries Association of Europe (ASD) are
working jointly to establish a complementary co-operation agenda,
reports UVonline.

The main objective is to address the challenge of allowing UAVs
to operative alongside conventional air traffic, a key to expanding
their use beyond military into the security and commercial domains
and creating a demand around which European industry can unite.

The initiative is starting with a European Defense Agency-funded
roadmap study that will evaluate the current state in which
military UAVs fly in segregated airspace, to where, by 2012,
civilian and government-operated UAVs could operate alongside other
manned aircraft in an integrated airspace.

Working at a European level can generate projects for both
security-oriented and commercial UAVs, as well as address their
military use. It also encourages the development of multi-purpose
technologies, supported by budgets of the Commission as well as
investment by industry.